Family Ties
by MissMary
Summary: Sly and Carmelita find a mother racoon dead and a child left orphaned, but when they take him in, they discover that matters are not nearly as simple as they began...Sequel to Silence Game.
1. Chapter 1

I do not own and did not invent Sly Cooper, his gang and/or Inspector Fox, Sucker Punch Games, or Playstation 2. This story is set after the third game, and is the sequel to the story, "Silence Game" posted earlier this year.

**Family Ties**

_From the diary of Carmelita Montoya Fox Cooper, Inspector:_

Some of the things we get into. I swear sometimes we have "Weird" tattooed on our foreheads for Fate to see, so she knows to give us trouble.

Today we had a nasty one, a double murder of a rabbit and a raccoon, with the raccoon pregnant. There were about four wharf rats dead. We had a tip and were on our way when the call came in that shots were going off. The house had been torn up; the murderers had been looking for something. There was blood going away from the house. From the look of the raccoon's gun and hands, and the tracks of blood going from the house, she got one or more of them pretty damn good, as well as the four dead. The rabbit was near the door and evidently was shot down when he answered it. We got there fast, but not fast enough to save them. We did manage to get some of the gang, thanks to Sly's skills and my roof jumping, but I had my doubts as to what we could get out of them.

When we came back into the house, Sly looked over the situation and sighed. The bodies were gone by now, but he looked at where the raccoon had lain. "I want to look in the closet," he said wryly. Then he froze, listening, and turned. Carefully he moved around and opened the door. We all heard it then- sobbing. Sly slipped in and emerged with a bundle wrapped in a blanket, murmuring to it the things you say to a small child who has just been through some kind of chaos he cannot hope to understand, in the hopes that the child will hear the comfort more than the words. The blanket, he told me later, was so the little raccoon would not see his house splashed with blood.

Hours later, the boy was asleep in Sly's lap, while we made out reports and waited for someone to arrive to deal with him. He had clung to Sly the whole time, and my husband, remembering too well his own past, helped deal with the incident paperwork and reports with a three year old child on one arm. It reminded me of how he did housework with Angelina on his back. He also managed to get from the little one that his name was Moses Cooper. I was getting jumpy. Angelina was with my mother and I knew she was fine, but that the social worker had not arrived bothered me. I knew from experience that often a long wait meant there wasn't space at a foster home, and I knew how Sly would feel about a child going to the orphanage. As the minutes ticked by and we waited, the idea that I had pushed away again and again began to resurface.

I had a hard time birthing Angelina and that was almost as hard on Sly as it was on me, so the decision that she would be the only one was not hard, and we made certain of it. After all, neither of us was getting younger. Still, I kept wondering if Sly wanted a son. Some men do. When I mentioned the idea of adopting so Angelina wouldn't be raised alone, Sly was interested. We went through all the paperwork and examinations, but we had not gotten to the point of choosing a child yet. The social worker told me that we were licensed to be foster parents so that we could keep a child for a while without committing, to see if he was a good match. Just was I was telling myself I was being impulsive, an exhausted looking young woman dragged in. She went over to Moses, checked as well as she could without waking him, and read the report. I went over while she read. Then she looked up. "I've called all over," she told us. "It's a bad night; I can't find anyone at home, and the orphanage doesn't have a bed. When I spoke to Jeanne at the orphanage, she said to ask the Coopers if they could help her out tonight." She looked at Moses. "Can you direct me?"

_Sly speaks_

I half-expected Carmelita to either object or make conditions when the social worker asked us to take Moses for the night, but she only nodded. I'd seen her looking over several times. I don't know if it was just because I was the first one to pick him up, or because I was a raccoon, or what, but Moses hung on to me from the beginning.

The night turned into a week, then "until." Moses began to open up after a couple of days. I remember best when he pointed to Angelina and asked if that was a baby sister. It seemed that his mother told him he was going to have a baby sister soon that would be company for him. Mother was Sylvia Cooper, born in the United States, and having no visible means of support other than the rabbit she lived with. We had him as Robert Hare, an expert mechanic, who owned his own business, and seemed to be a normal, upstanding businessman. He had family, but they did not wholly approve of Ms. Cooper, and were emphatic that Robert was not the father of Moses. Moses agreed; he referred to the rabbit as "Papa Rob," and said that he was "baby sister's" daddy and he and Momma were going to get married when the baby was born. There was no father listed on the birth certificate, and Moses was clear that he did not have a daddy that came to see him, only "unk" who came to see Mama sometimes. Mama, he said, stayed home with him, and sometimes in the first few weeks he woke up crying for her. Then some of the behaviors he started to show got me thinking. He saw me stretching once before running, and then did the same. For a while I thought he was only copying me- that child could be a wicked mimic- but after a moment I decided it was too perfect. Moses had been taught. He wanted to "walk on the fence" and did quite a good job, with Carmelita on one side and me on the other. He drew pictures with the other children at the daycare the orphanage ran, and one they showed me proudly was the head of a raccoon, somewhat stylish, in black and blue. When I asked Moses where he saw it, he said it was on Mama's book. I asked him to draw the book, and he tried, but he couldn't quite draw the letters. He didn't need to; I knew the book immediately. I asked him if Mama had told him stories of other Coopers, but he could not- or would not-remember. I was fairly sure that he was not mentioning something. He said he did not remember a grandmother or an aunt, and he had an "unk" but could not come up with a name. We did find his birth certificate, and his shot record, with some other personal papers of the mother. The pediatrician that saw the youngster talked to us, and said Moses was one of the healthiest children he'd ever dealt with, but he though some of that might be isolation; he had warned the mother that Moses needed to be around other children more.

It seems incredible when I look back, but at the time, we did not realize just quickly Moses became a part of our lives. We put him in the bedroom with Angelina, who had just been graduated to her own bed after we caught her climbing out of the crib for the third time. She didn't like the bed much and kept trying to come into our room, ruining some of our normal nighttime activities. When Moses came, while they had their spats and she had one or two moments of jealousy, she stopped coming into our room and we found her with Moses instead. They both wanted to come with us when we ran, and we sometimes took them, Angelina in the back carrier, Moses hanging on to a back. Carmelita's mother, who did not approve of our decision to not have more children, was delighted with Moses. For a time she thought he was mine. I was indignant, because at that time I was living with Carmelita, but then Mama Fox was never very logical. She was the one who pointed out that Moses looked remarkably like me, somewhat defensively. I blew that off as her silliness. I really do like Mama Fox; she's a good lady and a real help with the children, but sometimes I wonder how she managed to birth a daughter like Carmelita.

Shelly, a squirrel on our team, and her husband John, Bentley and Penelope, and Carmelita and I had an arrangement that we would all take turns watching the kids for one night a month, giving the other parents a break. Two adults would stay with the children. There was always one couple left free, and sometimes two, depending on how the schedule went. The month after we took Moses in, it was my turn with Bentley. We lucked up, because Murray showed, and the children loved climbing all over him. For a while, we had our hands full. I prefer running the legs off the children if I possibly can, as that tires them out and they go to sleep earlier. Moses hung on to my leg for a while until Bentley's twins and Sylvia, Shelly's daughter, lured him away with one of their remote control toys, and then he ran around with them without any more problems. When they played hide and seek, even I had a hard time finding him. More than once, I saw the twins walk past him. He was standing so still it was easy to look past him. Only his clothes sometimes gave him away; I remembered that Mama Fox had not liked his clothes, saying small children should have bright clothes, not dark ones, and had bought him new ones. I added his ability to freeze to the other items in my mind and was coming to a conclusion I did not like at all. Bentley noticed the child's ability as well, but other than a hard look at me, said nothing. When all the children were fed, bathed, and in bed, I flopped into a chair and blew out a breath. "They're a handful," I said feelingly.

"That they are," Bentley agreed. "All right, Sly. Tell us about that child."

"He looks like you," Murray said. He was flopped out on the couch, finishing the potato chips.

"So I've been told. I told you how we found his mother. There isn't a doubt in my mind that she was the one who killed the thugs we found dead. We found several with wounds, and two more came in dead later. We know who they were working for, a local wildcat drug lord we've already hauled in, but he was working for someone else. Before we could find out who, he got out on bail and was killed. He did not know why he was to kill her, only that he had the job. Both of you saw how Moses was hiding today." They nodded.

"It was your disappearing act," Bentley said. "Or a child's version of it."

I showed them the drawings Moses had made. "Mama's book," I told them. "He does a good job of walking on a fence without help, and he's learned to do stretches." I grinned, remembering the first time I found him doing that. "Mama's name was Sylvia Cooper. She doesn't seem to have a past that anyone knows about. She had no relatives anyone knows about, but Moses has mentioned an uncle who came to see Mama when Papa Rob was at work. "

"So Mama was a thief," Bentley said. "A good one, who wasn't caught by the police-just not quite good enough not to be caught by a victim."

"Right," I said. "And I wonder about the brother being her partner. I can see a mother taking time out to raise a child. Something Wildcat said led me to believe that he was supposed to be after someone else as well. When he realized he'd slipped up, he shut up. He'd have been better off talking."

"Do you think there's another line of Coopers?" Bentley asked bluntly. "You thought you were the last. Clockwerk said you were the last. "

I shrugged. "My father would hardly tell an eight year old everything. Or neither he nor Clockwerk may have known. I've never heard of any other thieves who left our mark, have you?" They shook their heads. "But if they were thieves- just thieves, not ones who went after other criminals- and they wanted to avoid Clockwerk's eye, I can see them dumping that part of the tradition. I just don't know. There has to be a connection."

Just then there was a wail from one of the bedrooms. It was Moses, having a nightmare of some kind. I took off to get him, but he woke up the other kids, and the conversation ended while Bentley and I rocked two children apiece to sleep and Murray let Sylvia go to sleep on his lap.


	2. Chapter 2

_From the diary of Carmelita Montoya Fox Cooper, Inspector_

Penelope and I came back from our shopping and dinner trip to find Bentley asleep in his wheelchair with the twins in his lap, Sly asleep with Moses and Angelina in his lap, and Murray asleep with Sylvia in his lap- the Cooper gang, domesticated. I wanted to get pictures but Sly woke up and ruined my chance before I could get the camera focused.

Once those three were the only family they had; all of them were alone, with no one else. When one was caught, the other two dropped everything and risked anything to get the captured one loose. When Sly came with me, I knew there were times when he badly missed his friends; when we were threatened by my brother Pierre, they stood behind him even though he told them not to, thinking they would be in trouble if his plan failed. Now, since Bentley and Sly had families, they were like a normal family where the children grew up and keep in touch regularly. They were straight, as far as Sly and I knew, because all of them had other sources of excitement now- Sly had his job, Bentley was building a time machine, and Murray was a racecar driver- and none of them had money worries. I could not believe it when I discovered that those two had shoved Sly's share of the Cooper vault into a storage space and left it. I couldn't believe they left him a share. If anything else, that tells me how close those three were.

It was a week later that the first copycat crime happened.

Sly was at a board member's meeting for the orphanage. Sometime after the matter with Pierre was over, but before I had Angelina, Mom and I were contacted about Pierre's estate. He had no will, and Mom had foolishly signed away all rights to him when she and his father divorced, so I was his heir. I didn't want any of his damned money. I knew where it came from. Mom didn't want it either. My father left her comfortable if not rich. Sly listened to both of us, and finally suggested that we give the money to the orphanage, seeing that it was what Pierre wanted to destroy. Well, not long after, I got a note inviting us to a reception given for those who supported the orphanage with donations. I was curious enough to insist that we go. Once there, I got away from Sly and talked to the sweet, shrewd lady who handles the donations, and found that Sly donated money regularly, and they had been trying to get him to be a member of the board for ages. She knew that Sly checked on occasion, to be sure the money was being used for the children. They had managed to change with the times, and were a major source of family services as well as an orphanage. I informed Sly that if I could leave them Pierre's money, he could make sure it was being used right, and grumbling, he finally agreed. The law firm that had handled all of Sly's business for him was more than glad to handle the matter for us. I still remember meeting them, as I had to sign papers. They were typical lawyers, and they laid out papers and explained all of them, and I signed. Over and over they asked me was I sure, didn't I want the money for my unborn child instead, until Sly, coming to see what took me so long, reminded them mildly that I had made my mind up, gentlemen, now leave my wife alone. They backed off.

"Why didn't they want me to sign over the trust?" I asked.

"They're greedy bastards," he said, driving us away-I was big enough by that time that he insisted on driving. "If they handle the trust, they get paid for it. The orphanage has their own attorney, who does their work at a reduced fee."

"What do they do for you? And why did they back off so fast?"

"Bentley dug up some dirt on them some time ago, when they handled the trust I had from my father. They'd lose their reputation if it came out. I don't hold it over them, but they know I know about it." He was quiet for the rest of the trip. Then, when we got home, he went over a lot of stuff with me, including his will, his bank accounts, and the fact that he had the loot from the Cooper vault, which he was quietly liquidating through Bentley. I had been fretting a little about money, even knowing something about his "business." I stopped worrying.

Anyway, Sly was in one of their board meetings when the word came that one of the local crime lords had been cleaned out. I found out when the Captain asked me where Sly was. I told them, and he sent a man to check. Sure enough, they confirmed he was in front of about twelve board members, two orphanage representatives, and an attorney when the crime occurred. It was a brilliant crime, and left behind in the safe was a small card, of a stylized raccoon head. The buzz in the lower office was that the Cooper gang had resurfaced. I went to check it out, and it was similar to the crimes I investigated for Sly's gang, except that the thief seemed to be working alone. The one glimpse anyone got was of a raccoon. On a hunch, I looked to see if the Cooper Gang case file was still in the records. It was gone. The matron who handled that part of the files had fits. By that time, Sly had arrived, and the Captain swept him and me into his office. "All right," he said, looking tired. "Inspector, report." I reported, while they listened. Sly had that dark look on his face.

"Why?" he wondered out loud.

"They got one hell of a lot of money," I said sourly.

"That's a good reason to break into the safe, but why use the Cooper card? The word out is that Sly Cooper's dead, and the gang is busted. We've done our best to make that stick." He started fidgeting.

"Copycats are trying to imitate, to be as good as the original," the Captain mused.

"With that stunt he was trying to copy Sly Cooper," Sly agreed. "In being dead. He took the devil's own risk, more than I would- and even I admit I was reckless. I had backup if I needed it, and that saved my neck more times than I can count."

"But we didn't know that for some time," I told him. "And this time we don't know he didn't have backup, just that they weren't seen."

"And most other thieves thought I was a damn fool, not someone to copy-the professional thieves, that is, not that I cared. Outside the professionals and the police, who knows about the Cooper gang? The only reason I can think of for someone to copycat is to throw blame on me."

"The colors are different," I said, looking at the picture of the card. "Yours was blue and white. This one is blue and black." I showed it to him. He looked at it and agreed, but frowned at it as if it reminded him of something. I resolved to ask why later. The captain sighed.

"Speculation is getting us nowhere," he said. "Inspector, I know this will hurt your team, but Syl needs to be out of this. I'm loaning him to search and rescue for three months or until this matter is settled." I nodded, relieved. Sly sat up as if he couldn't believe his ears. "You got lucky today," the captain went on, looking hard at Sly. "Search and rescue has requested your help before and you never objected."

"I don't object to helping but I need to –"

"Will you be able to help if you're shot at by other cops? That description fits you too damn well! "When the Captain raises his voice, everyone listens. Sly shut up. He was mad as hell, but he shut up. "If there's anything you can contribute outside the field, feed it to Carmelita. I don't object to that. Otherwise you report to search and rescue. I know the old dog who heads that department and he tries to get you transferred every time you help them out." I knew that; Sly told me humorously of all the times he had been coaxed to transfer when they happened, and I always told him he couldn't go, and we'd pretend to argue.

"It's not permanent," I said, "Right?"

"Hell, no." Sly relaxed just a bit. "Something about this bothers me. Something I'm not seeing but I know it's there. All right? I'll talk to you later, Cooper." Sly left. "Obstacle course?" he asked me. I nodded. When Sly is really pissed and not where he could take some action, he would go run the obstacle course to vent his spleen. We talked a while longer, and I left to review what we had and make arrangements. Some time later, I heard a shot, and went to see what was going on. Another rang out, and I began to run, shoving others out of the way. The sounds were coming from the obstacle course.


	3. Chapter 3

_Sly speaks_

I was royally pissed with being shoved off Carmelita's team, even though I understood what the Captain was saying. I honestly believed without me, they would not catch this guy. Carmelita caught me once. I was too close to a bomb blast and got knocked out. Two other times she got close, but only because we were working together against Clockwerk and Clock-la. Both times I got away, once by handcuffing her to an iron stair rail, the second time because when I offered to come quietly if she would let my friends go- Bentley was badly hurt and Murray was devastated- they managed rig the helicopter so I got away. Anyway, there were several differences between my jobs and this one, and when I got though the course once, I went back and climbed up to the top of the tower, squatted on the roof, and considered the situation. I had almost worked out what was bothering me, and how I would tell Carmelita, when I saw a shadow out of the corner of my eye and moved. I felt a sharp pain on my head. I had to jump, and managed to get to the ground and get under the only real shelter- beneath the tower-in one piece, with bullets spitting around me, some too close. When I could catch my breath, I pulled out my communicator, which was buzzing.

"Finally, Cooper! Where are you!" It was the captain.

"Under the tower." There were more shots. "I'm pinned." My head was burning now.

"We're on it. Don't move until I tell you it's clear." I waited, trying to figure out how to look out without being shot at. Then a shot came too close, and I stopped trying. After what was thirty minutes by my watch and an eternity while I stayed still and tried to be invisible, my head throbbed, and sweat trickled down my neck and itched, I got the all-clear and came out. The sun hit me like a hammer blow, and I had to lean against the tower to stay upright, as Shelly came around the corner and stopped in shock, then ran over and got under my arm, in the meantime getting her communicator out and saying I was hurt. That brought others in a hurry. The sharp pain was a bullet graze, and what I thought was sweat was blood, quite a bit of it by the way everyone was acting.

On the promise that I would stay at home and stay quiet, the doctor finally agreed to let me go home. She had already explained carefully to Carmelita that head wounds bleed a great deal for their size and danger, and that while I did have a slight concussion, there was no danger of bleeding under my skull or other hidden injuries, before the terror in Carmelita's eyes faded to her normal anger. Also, by that time the would-be assassins had been interrogated and it turned out that they were traced back to an Indian religious sect of some kind. They were being held pending deportation. While I was being stitched, bandaged, and tested-God, how I hate hospitals! - and finally got something for the headache, I was able to think.We got the children from her mother and I had to lie down when we got home. I hated putting all the work on Carmelita but I wasn't good for much. Moses came in after his bath and came over, put his hands on his hips and said, "You supposed to duck, Papa Coop."

"That's right, Moses," Carmelita said, bringing Angelina over. "Do you want some milk before you go to bed?" He went to the kitchen with her, while Angelina kissed the bandage to make it better. I pushed myself up and helped her put the children to bed. Later, when I was cleaning up in the kitchen, she snapped at me, and then stood there for a moment. "Let's get you to bed. You need to have one of those hard sleeps of yours. And Sly-don't argue with the Captain. This is what he was afraid of. "I sighed. "I came too close today to raising those children alone," she said, almost in a whisper, and rushed over to me. As she took deep breaths to fight off tears, I held her as tightly as I could and promised I would stay out of the investigation.

Two days later Carmelita told me that the leader of the Indian cult was found dead in his temple.

_From the diary of Carmelita Montoya Fox Cooper, Inspector_

The next day Sly went with the children to Mama's, and I went to work with the image of Sly's bandaged head in my mind and a willingness to hold someone's toes over a burning flame until they talked. I was not able to. All of them committed barehanded suicide in their cells. The only new information was that a sacred idol with a valuable jewel had been stolen from their sect about three or four years ago, and ransomed back for a fortune. No one could figure out how that connected. There was a stiff, formal apology from the Indian ambassador for the incident. I went home almost as upset as I had left. Only the sight of Sly moving around at almost normal, playing with the children, made me feel better. On the way home, I notice Sly had his father's staff in the car, and the police staff he used by his hand; when he returned to work, he had his shock pistol in a holster. His temporary transfer to search and rescue kept him busy, but it also gave him more time with the children.

I was busy tracking the copycat. For a week there was nothing; then there was another robbery, this time of a warehouse of smuggled teak and jewels. This copycat was not like Sly in many, many ways. He was ruthless, silent, cold, hard-and alone. But he looked like Sly and he was just as damn good, and he left the cards. He was better with electronics than Sly, but not as good as Sly at running or sneaking or becoming almost invisible. He had a gun and he used it if he thought he needed to keep us back or on his victims if they got too close. He didn't kill, but he would send a bullet into a knee or an arm if he needed to; we found several guard thugs that way, and Hunk, the driver bull on my team, got tires shot out from under him when he tried to chase the copycat down. We never found any evidence of a gang or partner. After the week, we got word of three more thefts. All the thefts were lucrative, and all were of known criminal figures that eluded the police. One of the criminal victims was found dead, but there was no evidence that he was killed even with our best medical examiner doing the autopsy. I told Sly everything, and his suggestions helped us get closer, but never close enough, just like with Sly. Only my reminder of his promise to me kept him from demanding to join us.

Then one day, when I was at the office and not in the field, I got a call from the daycare. Moses was hiding under one of the tables and wouldn't come out. He had been playing on the slides when suddenly he climbed down and tore off for the building as fast as he could run. They tried pulling him out, and one of the workers now had a nasty bruise on her arm where he kicked her away. I went to the daycare, and as soon as he heard me call him he catapulted out from the table and clung to my leg until I picked him up. He started crying, great gulping sobs, with some kind of words garbled in. All I could do was pat his back and hold him tight and tell him he was safe until he calmed down. Angelina heard me and came by, and I took them home. By this time, Sly came home, and Moses ran to him. Sly gave me a look and I told him what happened. We got the kids fed and bathed and let Moses stay underfoot until he and Angelina went to sleep in Sly's lap in the rocking chair. When he came back from putting them to bed, he said," Why is Moses afraid he's leaving here?"

"Is that was he was trying to say?"

"'Want to stay with you, Papa Coop, with you and Auntie Carm and baby sister.' At which time Angelina informed him she was not a baby." He sighed.

"We are keeping him, right?" I couldn't remember if Sly and I ever discussed adopting Moses; somehow I just assumed we would.

"I told Jeanne that we wanted to adopt weeks ago, when she said their search hadn't found family. She's supposed to call when we can start the paperwork."

"Good." I put the last of the dishes away. "What started the hysterics, though? Did he say?"

"No. When I asked he hid his head in my neck, and I didn't push it." He stretched, and I snickered, remembering one morning when I came in the bedroom and found Sly stretching, and behind him, Moses imitating every move. I had to dive into the bathroom to smother my bursts of laughter. Sly asked me why I was laughing and I told him, but instead of smiling he sat down. I sobered and waited. "You do realize his mother was a thief, and she was training him."

"What do you mean?" I had not considered the matter.

He stood up and went to the drawer where we kept the children's drawings. He pulled out one, a picture of a book with a black and blue raccoon face on it that Moses had drawn. "Mama's book," he said. He went on to tell me about how Moses would freeze playing hide and seek, and reminding me about how Moses wanted to walk on the fence and walked on any thin line he could find. "Sylvia Cooper had no records showing what she did, how she lived before she went to live with the rabbit. And she defended herself very, very well. Two things worked against her. She refused to leave Moses, and she was outnumbered. As it was, she took four of them with her, and two died later. I don't know that you could have done as well." For Sly that was a high complement.

"He was only three!"

"I was trained as long as I could remember. I didn't know it was training; to me it was games; it was lots of attention from my father." He was watching me carefully.

"Clockwerk said you were the last of your line."

"He could have and would have lied if he felt like it. And he didn't know everything. He was a machine, not a god or a demon. There could easily be other Coopers, with other books, that I never heard of."

"Why are you telling me this, Sly?" Was he having second thoughts?

"First, so you know."

"I don't care. Do you?"

He relaxed. "Why should I? He looks so much like me that everyone, including Moses, will think he's ours in a few years. Second, because there might be family who don't dare approach the authorities. I don't think so, because if there are, they never approached me, and I think they would have found a way."

"Then we'll worry about that when the time comes." Sly grinned at me, that grin I had seen a million times, either when I was bantering with him and looking for a chance to shoot, or when he was sure we finally agreed on something he was worried about.

"Good enough."


	4. Chapter 4

_Sly speaks_

There were no more incidents of hysteria from Moses after that, and the only other effect anyone noticed was that Moses stopped climbing on top of the playground equipment whenever he got a chance. When I say on it, I mean exactly that. He didn't go in the big tubes, he climbed on them; he didn't slide on the slide but tried to swing on the sides. I resolved to get him into gymnastics when I could.

Search and rescue wasn't bad. When not in the field, they trained, and I learned a lot. I taught quite a bit, too. While almost as fun as police fieldwork, without quite as much paperwork, the rescue work did not stop me from fretting about the copycat. Carmelita was having just as much trouble with him as she had with me. Without me they were not going to take him unless he made a mistake-fat chance! But the attack from the cult was a lesson I couldn't ignore; I had a family to take care of now. I asked Jeanne about adoption again; she said, very patiently, that there was a waiting period before she could start paperwork. I wanted the process to move, but the problem was that there was no father listed. There had to be a search process followed. There was no hurrying now; if we did, and someone turned up who claimed to be the father, the adoption could be overturned. I grumbled and she sympathized. The copycat was quiet for weeks. Carmelita and I started to relax-our mistake.

I was picking up the children when trouble finally surfaced. I had gone to the playground and could see Moses on the monkey bars, trying to get on the top again. They were the piece of equipment closest to the fence. When I saw him, I put Angelina down to go get him when a raccoon appeared on the fence. He had jumped to the bars, snatched Moses, had him in a sack and was back on the fence before I'd even gotten moving. Moses barely got out one good yell before they were gone. I stopped long enough to tell one of the attendants to call Carmelita before I was over the fence behind them, thanking all the deities I knew that I was wearing my shock pistol and had the staff over my back.

He was fast and he was good, but he had a child on his back and it slowed him. He climbed up to the rooftops within an hour. I kept them in sight without too much of a problem, but I could not quite catch up and I dared not shoot at him. He'd stopped long enough to move Moses to his back and tie him there. I spared a thought to wonder what he'd done to keep the child quiet. It was getting dark. Then he stopped to catch his breath, putting Moses down, and I landed in the rooftop close enough that I could fire, but he couldn't physically attack. Moses tore over as soon as he saw me, while the thief was pulling a gun.

We stood there, facing each other over the rooftop, me squatting with one arm around Moses, who was holding on to me and shivering, and him watching us, in that bent way, alert. We both had the weapons out- staffs on back, gun in his hand, shock pistol in mine. I kept thinking it was like looking in a mirror, but I had never used that kind of firearm. I 'm damn good with a turret gun, but I didn't like guns for close use, too risky. The lights of Paris were bright enough for us to see each other, if somewhat shadowed. He looked enough like me to be my twin. He looked enough like Moses to be his father. But why not come and claim him? Why grab and run, bringing me after? He must have known I would follow.

"So," he said, "we're at an impasse. I could shoot you, but I don't want to hit the boy- you could try for me, but I might shoot, and you won't risk that. Good. We need to talk before your lady gets here." He looked at Moses. "If you haven't figured it out yet, it's about the boy. He's my twin sister's child, and we're the last of our family line-cousin." He chuckled at my shocked look. "You were too young, when the Five got to your daddy, to know about the family lines. He'd have told you in a few years, when you took over from him. But you did all right, so we let it be. Yours was the show-offs, the flamboyant ones, leaving the little cards, going after the rough trade, and buddy, did you follow in those footsteps until you threw it over for the cop." His tone was approving when he added, "Don't blame you there, she's hot, and she's honest. Your line was always suckers for that. We were the quiet ones. We went after who we pleased, but we didn't brag about it like your line did. It's unusual that both Sis and I were in the trade. Most of the family wasn't. Your daddy got damn lucky, he had the one and you were capable." He stopped to cough. I started to move, and he had the gun up. "Don't make me take an ear off, cousin. I can if I need to."

"I believe you," I told him, remembering what Carmelita told me about his way with weapons. Moses whimpered. "It's okay, youngster, Auntie Carm's coming." I told him quietly. He twisted to look at his uncle, still holding on but not shaking anymore.

"Don't hurt him." He sniffled, trying to be brave but not quite able. I patted his back.

"If he stays still, I won't." His eyes went over the boy, checking him.

"Want to stay with Papa Coop, Unk."

The thief's face softened. "You will, baby. I needed to tell him some things first, all right? You be quiet and let us talk, and he can take you home." Moses nodded. "He's yours, cousin, more than he could ever be mine. I was going to take him, but I had to make some arrangements, and then I found out I didn't have long."

"Did you check on him at the daycare?" The thief nodded. That explained Moses' hysteria. He was told, several times, that if family did not come for him, he would stay with us, so when he saw his uncle-tantrum time. "A message would have worked, if you wanted to talk. Or see him." I watched him closely. It didn't take a doctor to see something was wrong.

"Not for what I'm planning. Quick now, there's not much time. I don't know who his father is. I think it's a cousin."

"Not me." I was sharp. Much as I would love to claim Moses, I would never have left a child and his mother unsupported.

"I know that. Sis might have tried, she did like your style, but you were too cautious for her. That she wouldn't have liked. She didn't want anyone else to have a claim, and she damn well made sure no one did. Sometimes I wonder if she went from one guy to the next, to be sure nobody knew, including her. She had a lot of plans for him. She did what we all do; when she was ready to stop, she got the child. It was after she had him she met the rabbit. She wasn't into anything more than training the tyke when they hit the house. You needn't worry about who it was. They won't be bothering anyone anymore."

So he was the one who took out the priest. It shook me; this guy was ruthless. "So what was the deal? Why go after a pregnant woman and her husband, and leave the child?"

"Same reason Clockwerk went after your daddy. They wanted revenge, and they somehow knew about the book; they didn't know about the baby, it just took them that long to track her down. She should have known better than to settle down yet. They never found me. I found out who betrayed her, and you won't have to worry about them either." That explained the other death. "She didn't have the book then; I did. I think they just missed the tyke; you guys got there fast. Had a tip?" I nodded. "I've taken care of her estate. You'll hear from those parties when the time comes. "For a moment he was quiet, panting. You could see he was in pain. Where was Carmelita? "Don't raise the boy to be a thief."

"I didn't intend to. Look, who are you? Kids this big aren't that good at names."

He chuckled. "Same as yours, cousin. Pure coincidence, it's just a popular name with the family. Most of mine is in the States; they don't mention me or Sis. They'd have come for the child if they knew the situation, but he'd be a burden to them, and he isn't to you. They might show when they hear about our deaths. We were trained by our uncle, Sis and I. He's gone now, slipped at a bad time. He's the one gave us the book. We were a team, the three of us, and that I know of we were never caught out. They didn't even know our names. That's convenient, since they only have one Cooper file- yours."

Finally it clicked. "You're the copycat."

"You got it. They'll have a Cooper-me. Case closed. You'll be safe, and the kid'll be safe with you. I'm dying. If I'm unlucky, I've got two weeks. He's all I've got left, cousin, so take care of him for me and Sis." I could hear shouting. Then he looked over to the side, and his gun came up again. I went down, with Moses cradled under me and wailing his head off at the noise that broke out. I heard Carmelita shouting at the excited cops to stop, dammit, stop, before they killed me and Moses, and her pistol went off. There was silence. I got up, to see Carmelita land beside me and haul Moses up to see if we were okay. Moses screamed again when he saw his uncle lying still, and she swept him up while I ran over. The thief who was my mirror image was still breathing; the only shot that landed was Carmelita's. The other cops came up while I was checking Unk Sylvester over and stood looking at me and him until I demanded handcuffs and an ambulance. Then they woke up and started doing their jobs.

He was right about his illness; the cancer was all in his gut, from the lung .He had managed to pull his grab for Moses and the run only by taking a street drug that essentially made him numb for a while. I thought the doctor would faint when she found out what it was. He didn't make two weeks and each day he was in more pain than the day before. He woke up enough right before the end to talk to me again. He refused to talk to anyone else, including a lawyer. I could see his point. He was dying, and there was not a damn thing they could do to him. One cop suggested the pain meds be withheld until he talked. If a doctor hadn't verbally ripped him to pieces, I would have physically. So bunches of cops came and charged a dying man with old crimes he would never stand trial for, to get them off the books when he died. Since they were all crimes that my gang and I did, but never got caught for, he got exactly what he planned.

When I came in to talk to him, he said," I'm not confessing to anything, so don't get your hopes up." He looked awful. "The social worker was in here, but I hurt too much to talk to her. She left some stuff. Go over it with me." It took a long time, as he had to think past his pain, but he got through it all. It was enough to get the adoption going faster. Then he started rambling, talking about his sister and uncle and some of the stunts they pulled off. I listened, both fascinated and repelled. They were good, but while they preferred not to kill, they would, and if it was someone who was just in the way, that was just too bad. At some point he went quiet. I went after a nurse, and she checked and said he was just asleep, but it wouldn't be much longer, and shooed me away. The next day we got word he was dead.

It was only days later, as I was arranging the funerals, that I got a call from the Captain to report to a different office than usual. He said that the matter was personal, so I went. I was somewhat impressed by the level of administration I was seeing, until I got to the office I was looking for, going past two levels of security on the way, enough to make me wish I could climb in the window and bypass all the formalities. There I discovered an older version of my father. "I'm Isaiah Cooper," he said, wasting no time. "Sit. In answer to your first question, yes, we're related, second or third cousin." When Uncle Sylvester told me he had made arrangements, he meant that he had detailed a bank to contact Isaiah within three weeks, knowing by then he would be dead. Isaiah, it seemed, already knew all about the whole situation. He informed me that he would pay for the funerals, he would set up a trust account for Moses, with the bank and I as co-trustees, and that he had informed the family overseas of the deaths and they would arrive shortly. Then he sat back and looked at me.

"All right," I said. "So why haven't I met you up to today?" What I was having a hard time not shouting was where the hell were you when I was dumped in the orphanage, where the hell were you when I was taking all the hell from the Contessa, and why are you butting in now?

He looked at his hands. "Look," he said, "I'm not the kind that's any good at kids or family or anything. When you were young, I was undercover in the field, and your father and I never saw eye to eye when we were young, much less when he started his career and I started mine. It wasn't until I got done that I found out about the mess, longer before I found out you were alive. You were doing all right at that place. I checked on you. I was going to bring you into the department when you ran off."

"You were the army recruiter?"

"It wasn't the army, but yes, I talked to the headmistress. Is that what you thought?" I nodded. It was why I left; being in a position where I would constantly bossed around and have to kill anything that moved did not appeal to me then or now. "It doesn't matter now, but I tried to catch up to you. You were too good, you and that gang."

I felt somewhat better. "And when I was in the Contessa's fortress? I went through hell in there."

"I was in the hospital, recovering from being poisoned. Several Interpol members were being manipulated, and I found out, but made the report to the wrong person. I'm the reason you're here now. I had to stay behind the scenes to arrange matters." He sighed and fidgeted with a pen. "I can't say how relieved I am that you straightened out. You've made a damn good cop. "He straightened. "Here's my number. Tell me when, if you please, and I'll arrange with the twins' family and myself to be there."

He nodded, and I left with a great many mixed feelings.

So, at the service, I found myself approached by a family of raccoons. They introduced themselves as Joshua, Daniel, Dinah, and Aaron Cooper. Dinah was the grandmother to Sylvia and Sylvester; the rest were cousins to them. Isaiah left as soon as the service was over, and I took the rest to Mama Fox's house, where Carmelita and Angelina were waiting. I had Moses with me, and hearing that one of them was his grandmother, Moses clung like a barnacle until they assured him they wouldn't take him away. Grandma Cooper and Nana Fox took over the kids and the rest of us gathered in the living room, crowding it. I told them what Sylvester told me, and that started the marathon session.

There were three different family lines they were aware of. One was mine, thought lost when my father died until rumors of me surfaced. Before that, they believed that I died when my parents did. They were afraid Sylvester had the boy, and in fact were quite relieved that I intended to adopt Moses. I was shocked when I discovered they had followed my career with interest. They knew as much about me as Carmelita did when she was after me, and they had an idea what happened between us since; slowly it dawned on me what they were, and finally I asked. "Are you telling me your line is cops? Most of you? Like Isaiah?"

"Told you he'd figure it out," Joshua told the others triumphantly. "Yep, that's right. One line was the one Ves and Sis went into- the pure thieves. One was yours, the ones that went after other thieves and played the games. Ours is cops, or close. Sometimes we get into something like but pays more. Isaiah was going to bring you in as soon as he could get hold of you, let you know there was another way, see if you would come over. Took you long enough to bring him in," he said to Carmelita critically.

"And where were you?" she bristled.

"Couldn't butt in. We don't go after family. He qualified." He jerked a thumb at me. "For one thing, like Ves proved, hard to see who's who." Carmelita scanned all the Coopers in the room and grinned, acknowledging the problem. "And he was doing all right."

So were you," Aaron added grudgingly. "Usually nobody sees much but shadows." He gave me a sideways look. I gave him a bland one back. "'sides, you did bring him in, just not how anybody expected." We all laughed. I had not missed the admiring glances they made at Carmelita. "And you helped get rid of Clockwerk and that mess afterward. We'd have helped if we'd known in time, but our contact in Interpol, while Isaiah was sick, was screwed up. He had no clue what was going on; he thought you'd gone over the edge and she was helping you. Idiot."

"Over the edge?" I asked, beginning to bristle myself.

"Turned killer. " My black look prompted a quick,"Hey, we know better now. Somebody was playing with the computers, altering the information." That sat both of us up. Not even Bentley was good enough to do that to the Interpol computers. "He was internal. We found out who it was when they were found with a knife in their backs- work of your pal Neela, we think. Nasty piece of work, that one was. Never did figure out what happened to her."

"She put herself into Clockwerk's rebuilt body, and we destroyed it," I said.

"Care to tell us about it?" Joshua suggested.

"No," we said in unison. They blinked at that, but they backed off, seeing that we weren't willing to talk. Instead they talked about the cop line, which mostly seemed rooted in the States. My mother had been one of them. She met my father and married him against the clearly expressed wishes of all of them, and left without a backward glance. By the time they found out I was orphaned, I was already attached to Bentley and Murray and going through the international red tape had been more than they could handle financially; Isaiah saw no reason not to leave me where I was until I was ready to be brought into the 'department'.

"Damn fool waited too long," Daniel grumbled. He seemed to be the quietest of the family. "He said he was busy, that he'd get to you when you were old enough, and then you lit out before he could get hold of you. Then you started on your happy little career, just like your dad and the ones before him. Grandma was fit to be tied. She was ready to row over here in a rowboat and rip his ears off every damn time we heard another story. " Carmelita started shaking with laughter. "You were too damn good, you and that gang of yours. Hell, Interpol must have gone through eight-"

"Six," I corrected, entertained,

"- all right, six, cops before they found her," he nodded at Carmelita, "who could keep up with you. It's a wonder you didn't get yourself killed, going up against Clockwerk and that Klaw gang by yourselves." He glared at Carmelita. "And you weren't much better, never wanting help, always had to do it by yourself." Carmelita stopped laughing and glared.

"You saw what I got when I got a partner!" Daniel didn't wilt at all under that glare. "Dammit, anyone I looked at either thought he should be left alone, he got rid of the nasty ones without the paperwork, and the others were trigger happy!"

"Daniel wanted to come over and shake the cockiness out of you," Joshua said to me apologetically. "He's your closest relation."

"My dad was your mother's sister," he grumped. "Pop died of stomach cancer two years ago." I reflected that cancer seemed to run in the family. "Anyway, if you and Carm here want to adopt the boy, that's right with us. He'll be with family. And Ves wouldn't have let him go to you if he didn't think you were okay. He was a cold arraogant son of a-" he glance into the yard and stopped, then went on," you know, and Sylvia wasn't much better, but they cared about each other, and he would have made sure Moses was taken care of right."

"All right, then," Carmelita said. "Now would you mind telling us which one of you is Moses' father?"

Dead silence reigned for a while as three Cooper men stirred uneasily. After a while, Joshua finally admitted, "We aren't sure."

Carmelita rolled her eyes. "Are you three at least the best possibilities?" They nodded. It was something to see, those three confident tough cops squirming, hating to admit that each of them might be the father of the three year old currently shouting at his foster sister at the top of his lungs for kicking a ball into the brambles. "Look, if we can't find out who the natural father is, then we have to waste months waiting until a search process works its way around to adopt him. The tests are painless, I promise. You take the test, you get the results, you sign some papers, and it's all over."

"We can't stay that long," Aaron said.

"You can stay long enough for the tests, and then come back." Carmelita wasn't letting them off the hook. "We'll cover your expenses." At that they all brightened, and I remembered that cops don't make that much, something Carmelita knew quite well.

So they did the tests- I still remember the phlebotomist asking if we didn't just want to flip a coin, all of us and Moses looked that much alike- and it turned out that it was Daniel, quiet grumpy Daniel, who was the father. He came over and signed all the paperwork and made us promise to keep him informed. Three weeks later we got word that a trust fund had been established for Moses through the estates of his mother and uncle. I almost wrote back to tell Isaiah what he could do with it, but refrained; Ves had taken care of Moses the best he could manage. We compromised by putting the income in an education account for him.

This meant that it was only a few months when Moses, Carmelita, and I stood in front of the courthouse, papers in hand, saying that Moses was now legally our child. We explained as well as we could to Moses, and he asked Carmelita if he could call her Mama now. She managed to laugh instead of cry when she said he could. When we got home he told Angelina she was too his baby sister, and they got into a fight about it.

That's kids. I wouldn't have it any other way.


End file.
